Paul Celan's "Mohn und Gedächtnis", "Von Schwelle zu Schwelle", "Sprachgitter", "Die Niemandsrose", "Atemwende", "Fadensonnen", "Lichtzwang", "Schneepart" and "Zeitgehöft". Of course, this is basically his works in the order of publishment, because Celan's ash-colored language is vital to understand Ash Boat. If you do not have much time, you can try the first three in that order. They are all collections of poems, and thus shouldn't take too much time to read. Though, you may prefer to read it for several times or find comments to help you.
And Anne Carson's work, let's say, "Autobiography of Red". Anne is Canadian and writes in English, so her work should be easier to read than say, Paul's.
Finally, we are planning to make other (easier) difficulty options. This is actually already done in Chinese version, but alas I do not have the time to translate it into English. I am already finding substitutes to help me with the translation process, but other than that I'm afraid the English version might have to be postponed for a while.
And thanks for liking Ash Boat. We will strive to make it better!
Quite a lot. Here is a list of a few recommended writers and poets. The hard ones are marked specially as a way to further understanding on abstract contemporary literature. And sorry for such a late reply. I've been on an internship for these months. These categories are divided based on how the authors are perceived by us.
-----------------------
Playwriters:
Peter Handke
Elfriede Jelinek (hard)
-----------------------
Novelists:
Nathalie Sarraute
Herta Müller (our favorite)
László Krasznahorkai (for Sátántangó)
Imre Kertész
Mikhail Shishkin
-----------------------
Poets:
Paul Celan (our favorite, and very hard)
Elizabeth Bishop
Yves Bonnefoy
Phillippe Jaccottet (has a similar style to the first section)
Anne Carson (quite hard)
Oskar Pastior (the hardest on the list)
-----------------------
Others:
Annie Erneaux
Jean Baudrillard
-----------------------
Austrian State Prize for European Literature, Nobel Prize in Literature, The Booker Prizes, Büchner Prize are all generally good standards for choosing a good author. Try following those. I MUST be missing a lot of good writers. DO NOT TAKE ANYONE NOT ON THIS LIST AS A SIGN OF DISRECOMMENDATION!
Frankly I am jealous of how fast books are published in English. The Chinese translators are never fast enough. Read more and be grateful that you have such a wide range of options right on the bookshelf. This list really should go on and on and on.
If you want a game written in similar style, you can read Ash Boat. These shorts stories are not my main project, so I won't put too much effort into it. Sorry.
Oh, I forgot to mention that my intention was to give up monetary supports in exchange for that people who want to support Ash Boat can use Ash Boat's assets to create something themselves. I think this is the best kind of support one can give to the Ash Boat project.
As for monetary supports, I probably will consider receiving some, but not now. Thank you for your suggestions anyway.
Thank you for your opinion. I've considered that before, but allowing public funding seems like allowing patrons to comment negatively when we are not in perfect state to me. We are not producing popular literary content, as you can see. The Ash Boat is written in poetry and poetic-novel language. It's hard to understand, and I fear it might seem controversial to open up public funding under such circumstances.
Ash Boat is essentially a free commons package, as it's published under a CC license. I know it's difficult and costly to produce a visual novel, so Ash Boat project is actually aimed at other producers, and those who want to be one. Anyone can use the artworks in Ash Boat's package under the license. I feel that this is a way to aid the entire furry community to the better.
I feel obliged to remind you that some sections in both languages are a little difficult to comprehend though. Fans of Paul Celan or Philippe Jaccottet may find those sections interesting.
I think QQ does have an international version. Not pretty sure why you cannot register. If you are still interested, we can talk about replacement options anyway.
As someone already asked for an English version, our studio went on an immediate discussion about it. My English is not bad among Chinese, but it turned out that this novel is quite difficult to translate. Many words are already obsolete in Chinese, not mentioning its counterpart in English. Therefore, we are in need of a localization volunteer with the following qualities:
1. Is native English speaker (No need to understand Chinese).
2. Have some basic understanding on contemporary literature.
3. Have abundant spare time.
4. Agree to use QQ for communication (As the entirety of our studio is based on QQ, using another tool for communication would severely slow down the process). You can register an account if you don't have one.
The project is founded solely by me, and it makes zero revenue. As such, we may not be able to pay. If you are interested, please reply under this topic.
As for the contemporary literature stuff, surely section one is quite contemporary and quite literature, other sections might not be so "contemporary literature". We are still striving to be literature anyway, and we hope that other sections won't disappoint you.
Thank you for such enthusiasm! We have scheduled to translate the game, but we might have to wait until the text in Chinese version settle.
Our belief is that taking literary standards as our quality guidelines would improve the game as a visual novel, which is still a novel in essence. However, minor modifications are virtually inevitable when we are trying to meet these guidelines, and translating the game prematurely would invoke even more modifications to be made when changing the lines. We have since decided to create a separate package for English version, which may lag behind the Chinese version.
This is especially important for the current version, as the formal version of chapter one comes with revolutionary changes about the gameplay.
The formal Chinese version of chapter one and the beta version of chapter two are scheduled to be released in early June, and the formal English version of chapter one would probably be released sooner or later than that. Beta versions are always in Chinese.
